Three years after the landmark Dobbs Supreme Court decision, the mission of Care Net—to offer compassion, hope, and help to women and men at risk for abortion—remains as urgent as ever.
This reality was underscored by a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which found that the rise in abortion pill distribution has been a major driver of abortion statistics in recent years. The research project, led by University of Texas at Austin Professor Dr. Abigail R. A. Aiken, was entitled, Provision of Abortion Medications Using Online Asynchronous Telemedicine Under Shield Laws in the US.
Despite the high number of state-level abortion bans following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, recent data suggest that abortion rates have remained steady or even increased, the JAMA study concluded.
This trend may be explained, at least in part, “by the growing use of online asynchronous telemedicine abortion services—particularly those operating under shield laws, which allow U.S.-licensed clinicians to provide abortion medications to patients in ban states with protection from legal liability.”
In his latest book, Care Net President and CEO Roland Warren said the use of chemical abortion pills has surged, reshaping the landscape of abortion in America.
“An alarming 63 percent of abortions now occur via the abortion pill,” Roland writes in The Alternative to Abortion: Why We Must be Pro Abundant Life. “As a result, every bathroom in every home or college dorm room is now a potential abortion clinic.”
“Prior to the ubiquity of the abortion pill, which is readily available online or at many local pharmacies, it was generally nine days from the time a woman confirmed her pregnancy until she scheduled her abortion. Unfortunately, now the timeline has gone from nine days to nine inches—the distance from her hand to her mouth with the abortion pill.”
In the JAMA study, researchers analyzed 15 months of data from Aid Access, a nonprofit organization that provides abortion pills to patients in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In a recent article, The Guardian reported that Aid Access shipped almost 120,000 packs of abortion pills to US residents between July 2023 and August 2024 – nearly 100,000 of whom lived in states that outlaw the procedure or have laws on the books that ban the mailing of abortion pills. Abortion pill distribution rates were more than three times higher in states that ban abortion compared with those that do not.
“Aid Access leverages shield laws to mail abortion medications to residents in 24 states with near-total or telemedicine bans, operating without the need for such protections in states where telemedicine abortion is legally accessible,” the study noted.
Shield laws are significantly shaping abortion pill access in the post-Dobbs era. The growing tension between shield law states and states enforcing abortion bans, such as Texas, has already led to high-profile court battles over cross-border enforcement. Legal experts warn that as more of these cases emerge, the conflict could ultimately land before the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially setting a national precedent on the reach and validity of shield laws.
To address this abortion pill epidemic, organizations like Care Net, which has a network of 1,200 pregnancy resource centers nationwide, are adapting to minister to the increasing number of women who are considering abortion pills.
In The Alternative to Abortion, Roland Warren notes that callers to Care Net’s Pregnancy Decision Line (PDL) sometimes have their abortion pills in hand when they make the call.
“Care Net is continuously evaluating and expanding the services we offer through PDL. We now have nurses who can answer questions about the abortion pill and other abortion procedures that require more medical expertise,” he said.
Thankfully, there are many testimonies of women who had already taken the abortion pill or were considering it and found hope after connecting with the Pregnancy Decision Line. In several cases, timely support, medical intervention for abortion pill reversal, and compassionate coaching led these women to continue their pregnancies and choose life for their babies.
For those of us committed to a Pro Abundant Life ethic, this new data on abortion pill access presents both a challenge and an opportunity—to meet women earlier in their decision-making process with compassion, support, and resources.